A public policy debate is brewing in the United States
concerning whether or not our election technology should include Internet
voting. While there are many dimensions to this debate, generally people are
asking “if I can bank online and shop online, why can’t I vote online?”
Also, the inconvenience of our 19th Century
practice of trekking to polling places to cast a vote is being questioned
across the nation. After news reports about long waits in line at poling places
during the 2012 election, President Obama said “we’ve got to fix that.”
To study the problem, in March, 2013, President Obama issued
an Executive Order convening his
Presidential Commission on ElectionAdministration.
The Commission was
chaired by two Washington lawyers – Robert F. Bauer, a Democrat, and Benjamin
L. Ginsberg, a Republican.
I submitted
my research paper on Internet voting, and other comments, to the
Commission in favor of encouraging states and local jurisdictions to implement online voting trials, especially for
overseas military.
The Commission released its Report on election
administration in January, 2014. The Report made some recommendations for
trying to make polling place voting more efficient and convenient. It also
praised the move by several states to implement online voter registration. More
than 25 states now have online voter registration. While recognizing the convenience and
efficiency of registering to vote via the Internet, the Commission stated,
without evidence or further comment, that “the internet is not yet secure
enough for voting” (p 60).
What I find so interesting, even amazing, is that not only
does a Presidential Commission on Election Administration simply assume, with
no scientific evidence, that the Internet is too insecure for voting, but so do
nearly all the key participants in this important public policy problem. I also find it amazing, and regrettable, that
the political science profession in the US is so quiet on the issue of Internet
voting security. Other than my
paper, now being presented to the American Political Science Association, I know of no other studies testing the hypothesis of Internet voting insecurity.
Hypothesis Testing
The well known philosopher of science, Karl Popper, has
argued that an essential function of any science is that of conjecture and
refutation. Since voting and elections
are central to the domain of the political science profession, shouldn’t
political scientists be engaged in the effort at least to test, if not refute,
the hypothesis of Internet voting insecurity?
It appears to me that out of an excess of deference for
computer scientists, political scientists are not using their expertise and
methods to make any sort of contribution to this very consequential public
policy debate.
Therefore, one of the primary aims of my paper is to show
political scientists how they can test the widely accepted, but untested,
hypothesis that the Internet is too insecure for voting. I want political scientists to see that they
can use their own methods of study – especially case studies – to test the
hypothesis of Internet voting insecurity, and do so independently of whatever claims activist computer scientists
assert.
I take two well known approaches to testing the hypothesis
of Internet voting insecurity. First, I look carefully at the language used by
its proponents to assert and to support it. Second, I examine the actual
experience of Internet voting trials, as case studies, to see if these facts
support or undermine the validity of the hypothesis.
Assertions that Internet voting cannot be done securely are
presented in the form of factual statements.
Karl Popper has set the standard for assessing the scientific quality of
statements about matters of fact.
Statements that purport to be factual, but that cannot be disproven under any
circumstances cannot be considered scientific statements, says Popper, but must
be consider folk tales or myths. In other words, to be scientific a statement of fact must be falsifiable, that is, capable of disproof. If it can’t be tested,
then it can’t be factual.
One
example of an unfalsifiable argument is the ancient admonition, “The End is
Nigh.” This supposedly factual claim has
never been disproven. Indeed, one discussion of false Armageddon predictions
has it that the first warning on record is found on an Assyrian clay tablet
from 2800 BC.
Because
this fear mongering Armageddon claim is impervious to both logical criticism
and empirical disproof, it creates the illusion of Indubitable Truth for its
adherents. By logic, just because the
End has not yet occurred, does not mean it will not occur – and soon.
Empirically, it is unfalsifiable because with each failure today the prediction
can simply be moved to tomorrow.
In the paper, I discuss numerous unfalsifiable claims made
by an avant-garde of activist computer scientists in support of their
hypothesis of Internet voting insecurity.
I think it important to note that none
of the computer scientists in this avant-garde have any experience building
Internet voting systems that were actually used in elections for public office.
I should also point out that the computer scientists who have set up such systems are confident that security threats can
be adequately protected against.
Self-Erasing Bugs
One of the many unfalsifiable claims made against Internet
voting is that malicious code can be installed in a computer that tallies
votes, and can change the results of an election, and can then erase itself and
never be detected.
If this is true, then the integrity of no election that
relies on a computer to count the vote can be trusted. Every such election
result could be the product of undetected, self-erasing malicious code.
I argue in the paper that very scary stories, such as this,
are part of a strategy activist computer scientists have followed to put
themselves in charge of election administration in the United States. I argue
further that they have succeeded!
In my view, activist computer scientists have executed a coup
d'état over the election administration function of government in this country. Among other things, they have had laws passed
in several states requiring what they call a “Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail”
for every vote cast. Having a paper
record, they say, is the only way to be sure upon audit that the vote tally
matches the votes actually cast, and that the count is not the product of
undetected, self-erasing malicious code.
This coup d'état includes the conquest of territory that
political scientists have traditionally thought to be a core element of their
professional field of study. Since this conquest, it seems that political
scientists can say nothing about implementing technological reforms in election
administration for fear of attracting the public disapproval of activist
computer scientists. Indeed, I show how this actually happened in 2004, when
political scientists Thad Hall and Michael Alvarez, who favored Internet
voting, were completely overruled by just a few very vocal doom predicting
anti-Internet voting computer scientists – who also had a lot of help from the New
York Times.
In their defense, political scientists can use the Popperian
standard that says unfalsifiable claims are mythical and not scientific. The charge that an election could have been
the result of undetected, self-erasing malicious code does seem to be an
unfalsifiable claim, and therefore not scientific. But this argument, by itself, is not likely
to assure a frightened public or the legislators who must answer to that
public.
In my view, the only effective way to nullify, or falsify,
this scary claim is through the use of case studies of actual Internet voting
trials.
Case Studies as Tests
If political scientists produced study after study of
elections involving online voting in which there were no doubts about the
integrity of the results, then the conclusion may be fairly drawn that the
integrity of the results can reasonably be trusted.
Case studies can describe the security measures taken in a
given election. Then the study can state the results of interviews of key
people, and of polling. Key people would include relevant elections experts,
elections officials and administrators, the computer scientists involved,
journalists, winning and losing candidates, party leaders and political
activists, as well as voters. Opinions may vary, and the reasons for those
opinions can be included. If the research shows that in the minds of these
folks there is confidence in the legitimacy of the vote, then claims of doubt
could be seen as just more baseless cries of “wolf.”
If activist computer scientists continue to dogmatically
insist that “you can never know for certain whether a disappearing bug changed
the outcome,” they can reasonably be dismissed as myth-makers and fear
mongers.
Indeed, I have done some
preliminary case studies of Internet voting trials for elections to public
office.
These include
West Virginia in
2010, and Norway in
2011 and
2013.
Here,
only the same few activist computer scientists insisted on such notions as there
could have been a disappearing bug at work, but the officials, experts,
candidates, and public felt confidence in the results.
In Canada, about 50 different cities have conducted Internet
voting trials, all without doubts about the legitimacy of the results -- except
for anti-Internet voting activists. Case studies of these elections are being
done by Canadian political scientist, Nicole Goodman.
My paper also closely examines a report issued by the
Elections Division at NIST. Unfortunately, that report merely repeats all the
unfalsifiable claims of the activist computer scientists, without any social
scientific case studies, or any other kind of science.
Conclusion
In conclusion, political science has the methodology it
needs to undo the coup in US election administration and its own ouster from
the public policy debate over election technology reform. Our profession only
needs to apply these methods and to assert itself.
******************************
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist, author, speaker,
CEO for The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund
Twitter:
wjkno1
Author of Internet
Voting Now!
